Page 42 of Jealous Boss

I can’t help recall how he’d looked when I tried one last time to talk to him last night, how he’d stood at his condo window, his back firmly turned, as if he was rejecting what we’d done.

Rejecting me.

The tension riding his shoulders screamed that it was a bad idea to engage in further conversation.

I knew I’d pushed him into giving me that experimental spanking.

Andoh la la, what an experience it was.

I had no idea it would make me so… wet. So needy. Leave me with an even bigger hunger.

Now I’m full of questions. Questions he’s not here to answer.

I flash another glance at his empty office. At the leather chair he fills so well and looks so magnificent in.

I spent last night tossing and turning, frustrated and yes, still hurt at how everything had turned out. And as the darkness outside lightened, I decided I could tackle things one of two ways.

Pretend nothing happened and go back to how things were before he took me shopping on Saturday and glared at every guy who got within touching distance. Before he snarled in Marty Oswald’s face as if he was a twitchy second from ripping his face off. Before he warned me to stay away from my neighbor, and before he splayed me so decadently over his knees, spanked me then jerked off with his eyes fixed squarely on my burning ass cheeks and the wet space in between.

Yes, I could go back to all of that.

Or… I could do the exact opposite.

Be brave and run full bore at this thing.

Because wasn’t that why I put my foot down this summer and refused to remain in Switzerland when Mother sent me one of her flighty last-minute texts to tell me plans had changed?

That she had her hands full with back-to-back engagements—not-so-secret code for partying—and that she could arrange for me to spend the summerin a friend’s villa. Meaning she intended to dump me on a stranger who owed her a favor.

The thought of enduring months of fake smiles and pitying looks had me immediately calling Uncle Phil, who’d been gratifyingly annoyed with his sister-in-law and stepped in with a different plan that had led me here.

Mother didn’t so much as utter a peep when I texted her with the new plans. And the last I heard, she was in St. Barts with a bunch of her friends.

As for Dad… my heart squeezes tighter for a whole different stream of reasons I don’t want to think about now.

My gaze drifts past Ethan’s chair again as if he might’ve magically appeared while I was thinking of my fraught, almost non-existent relationship with my parents.

The different hollow, one of missing out on the chance to see how far I could get by pushing Ethan’s buttons, has me discarding any thought of stepping away from the heady edge. The one he’d brought me to last night and left me dangling on.

I suck in a shaky breath as scenarios fill my head, making me hot.Hotter. Deliberately, I shift just so I can feel the lingering pain in my ass.

Daydream about how it will feel for him to repeat that spanking experiment spread across his thighs… in his office.

Or maybe I could show him my red ass again…while crawling across his office floor the way I’d seen Maggie Gyllenhaal do in that movie.

“Pia.”

Mon dieu, why does that make me feel so hot?

“Pia?”

I jump at Maggie’s sharp voice. I know I look guilty as hell when I meet her gaze. “Ou—yes?”

“I asked if you were finished? I need you to run some documents over to the fifth floor.”

I scramble to my feet, eager to get away from her prying eyes. “Yes, I can do that. I’m almost done reviewing the document. I can finish when I get back.” I also need a reprieve from the monotony of paperwork, which allows my unholy thoughts to run unchecked like a friggin’ wildfire.

A walk to clear my head is exactly what I need.

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